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About John Pitcher

John Pitcher is the chief classical music, jazz and dance critic as well as co-founder of ArtsNash. He has been a classical music critic for the Washington Post, the Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle, National Public Radio’s Performance Today (NPR), ArtNowNashville.com and the Nashville Scene. His writings about music and the arts have also appeared in Symphony Magazine, American Record Guide and Stagebill Magazine, among other publications. Pitcher earned his master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he studied arts writing with Judith Crist and Phyllis Garland. His work has received the New York State Associated Press award for outstanding classical music criticism.

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Southern Baptist Sissies, the Kirk-Burgess Productions presentation of the Del Shores’ acclaimed play, continues through Saturday after opening to sold-out shows during the July 5 weekend at the Darkhorse Theater. Tickets are going quickly, with the limited tickets remaining for the remainder of the run. With its theme of religion clashing with sexuality, Sissies has […]

Nashville Children’s Theatre (NCT), the nation’s oldest professional theater for young audiences, is pleased to announce the addition of Technical Director Alex Useted. Useted brings extensive experience from Chicago’s theaters to Nashville. “Alex absolutely has the chops, and is going to be a great fit,” says NCT Artistic Director Scot Copeland. “We’ve been fortunate to […]

The first national tour of the high-flying Broadway musical Catch Me If You Can – based on the hit DreamWorks film and the incredible true story that inspired it – will land in Nashville at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s Andrew Jackson Hall for a limited engagement Jan. 22-27. Tickets start at $15 and are […]

It’s a new show in a new space: The Theater Bug will premiere The Paper Bag Princess on June 29. It’s a musical based on the acclaimed children’s book of the same name by Robert Munsch. Theater Bug founder Cori Anne Laemmel has written the musical’s book and co-written the music with Eric Fritsch. The […]

Nashville celebrates its 50th Anniversary as a consolidated government this year, and Metro Arts is celebrating with Retro Metro, an exhibition that offers a glimpse of the city’s arts and culture scene at that time. Playbills, posters, photographs, and other ephemera from the vaults of Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and Museum of Art, Circle Players, Country Music Hall […]

“…What a day this has been! What a rare mood I’m in! Why, it’s almost like being in love! There’s a smile on my face for the whole human race! Why, it’s almost like being in love!…” From “Almost Like Being in Love” in Brigadoon A review of David Auburn’s riveting play The Columnist that begins with lyrics from […]

What’s the matter with nine year-old Jesse? He can’t sit still, he curses, he raps and he won’t get into – or out of – his pajamas. His teacher thinks the problem is Attention Deficit Disorder. Dad says, “He’s just a boy!” Mama’s on her own quest for answers, pinballing from the Internet and her […]

The fifth edition of Tennessee Repertory Theatre’s annual A Christmas Story staging is up, and that Red Ryder 200-Shot Carbine Action Range Model Air Rifle with a compass and a thing that tells the time built right into the stock has never looked better. Philip Grecian’s theatrical adaptation of the beloved 1983 film inspired by […]

In his 1981 book Facing the Music, New York Times critic Harold C. Schonberg wrote of a disturbing trend in classical music. After years of listening to the recordings of turn-of-the-20th-century conductors, instrumentalists and singers, Schonberg concluded that performance tempos had slowed down radically. “Musicians today are prevailingly slower (emphasis in the original) than they […]

Several of Nashville’s top jazz vocalists and instrumentalists joined forces over two weekends to celebrate the life and accomplishments of a beloved friend and mentor to numerous area performers young and old. The outstanding arranger, guitarist/bassist, bandleader and instructor Billy Adair, who passed away last month, was honored in two memorial concerts at Ingram Hall by The Blair Big Band (April 19) and […]

Ernest Dawkins, Afro Straight (Delmark) Though usually pegged as strictly an outside/avant-garde type, saxophonist and bandleader Ernest Dawkins’ musical interests are much broader, as this fine new disc demonstrates. He’s as accomplished on standards and ballads (“God Bless The Child,” “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise”) as on his own pieces (“Old Man Blues,” “Juju”), […]

Pat Metheny has always prided himself on being a maverick in musical circles, ignoring genre conventions and looking ahead rather than behind. After not having a saxophonist or reed instrumentalist in his group for nearly three decades, Metheny recruited ace multi-instrumentalist Chris Potter for his Unity Band in 2012. He was a key addition. The […]

FRANKLIN, Tenn. – How do you go Into the Woods – and just as importantly, how do you get out? Studio Tenn has a pretty good idea: It’s built a production expressly for the intimate confines of Franklin Theatre that entertains and intrigues in equal measure. Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s tale-of-two-halves is a musical […]

Music director Giancarlo Guerrero is away this weekend, but he’s left the Nashville Symphony Orchestra in the hands of two distinguished artists. Hans Graf, a familiar face on the guest conducting circuit, is in town to lead the NSO in such perennial favorites as Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K. 503 and […]

The Belcourt Theatre presents The Story of Film: An Odyssey, a 15-hour film screened in eight parts that passionately and expertly offers a guided tour through the history of moving pictures. The first two parts will screen this weekend on Saturday and Sunday at noon each day. Additional parts will open each weekend at noon […]

Nashville Public Television (NPT) has chosen Remote Area Medical, directors Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman’s document of the annual three day “pop-up” medical clinic organized by the non-profit Remote Area Medical (RAM) at the Bristol, Tennessee NASCAR speedway, as the 2013 recipient of the NPT Human Spirit Award at the Nashville Film Festival. The NPT […]

13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests January 17, 2015 Saturday at 8pm OZ, 6172 Cockrill Bend Circle Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol shot almost 500 Screen Tests, revealing portraits of various individuals, both famous and anonymous, who visited his studio, the Factory. They were asked to pose, lit, and filmed by Warhol […]

Hopefully the ghost of Gioachino Rossini is happy with the way Nashville Opera lovingly handles his Cinderella (La Cenerentola). Wednesday’s exuberant dress rehearsal points the way toward a very enjoyable run among the living today, Sunday and Tuesday in Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s Polk Theater. Director John Hoomes has settled on an approach that respects […]

While plenty of folks turned up for the grand opening of the new David Lusk space at the Arts & Music at Wedgewood/Houston event last Saturday night, gallerygoers in the know found even more to like at Track One where Seed Space’s brand new digs hosted a light art installation that was the most fun […]

You’ve heard of New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival? Well, the Nashville Symphony Orchestra’s final 2012 summer fest concert was Basically Beethoven. The performance, which music director Giancarlo Guerrero led Saturday night at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, used Beethoven’s music as sonic bookends. Guerrero opened the concert in heroic style with Beethoven’s Overture to Egmont, Op. […]